Lewis Hamilton declared it good to be back in the fight after vying for victory at the British Grand Prix.
Hamilton had to make do with third at Silverstone – his second successive podium – but had threatened to pass both Ferraris before the safety car was deployed following Esteban Ocon coming to halt on the track on lap 39 of the 52-lap race.
“I like to think we’re on the turning point, we’re still on the bend,” said Hamilton of his best weekend in 10 races this season. “We’ve still got work to do. We need more naturally, we have to keep pushing and stay positive. But it’s great to be back in a fight.”
Carlos Sainz took the win from Sergio Perez in a thrilling race from start to finish, which saw title rivals Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen finish fourth and seventh respectively.
Hamilton had a thrilling battle with both Leclerc and Perez in the dying laps of a race, which had been red flagged after a horror crash involving Zhou Guanyu and then Just Stop Oil performing a sit-in protest on the track.
For the Briton, it was a case of what might have been at the chequered flag. He said of his hopes of the race win: “Definitely for a while it was feeling on, just a bunch of things went against us.
“The start, we got up to third, then they put us back to fifth, then I lost ground to Lando [Norris] so I spent a bunch of laps to get past him.
“But I was doing good times and catching the Ferraris up. I did a really good long stint and thought maybe we can fight for a win here. Unfortunately the gaps were getting too big.
“At the end, I struggled with the warm-up so I lost out to two cars and then yeah, it was so tough today.”
